Washington ? The Supreme Court on Monday limited the government’s authority to forcibly medicate mentally ill criminal defendants to make them well enough to stand trial for fraud or other charges.

The 6-3 ruling means the government will have to meet conditions before putting defendants on anti-psychotic drugs before their trials.

Justice Stephen Breyer, writing for the majority, said the government must show that involuntary medications “will significantly further” the goal of bringing the case to trial. And courts, in considering individual cases, must consider “alternative, less intrusive treatments” of defendants, he wrote.

The case required the court for the first time to balance the government’s interest in punishing nonviolent crime with a person’s constitutional right to control his or her body. Justices said the Constitution allowed the government to administer drugs “in limited circumstances.”

“The justices put a pretty high bar for the government to meet,” said Barry Short, the attorney for a dentist facing fraud charges in the case. “The justices didn’t buy into what the government wanted, the right to medicate them under any circumstance.”

Breyer said forced medications could be permitted only rarely.

Some groups had called on the court to use the case to ban forced medication outright.

“Hopefully, courts will use this test carefully to protect against coercive drugging,” said Judith Appel, an attorney with the Drug Policy Alliance, which contends that people — not government — should decide what drugs they take.

The federal government puts hundreds of defendants on medication each year to make them competent to stand trial. Most take the drugs willingly. In a recent 12-month period, 59 people were medicated against their wishes and about three-fourths were restored to competency, the government has said.

The case is Sell v. U.S., 02-5664.

Other key actions the Supreme Court took Monday:

• Upheld a public housing policy that allowed designation of crime-ridden public housing neighborhoods as off-limits to uninvited visitors, with prosecutions of some trespassers.
• Ruled that the government can prohibit campaign contributions from advocacy groups, a warm-up decision to the showdown over the broader new campaign finance law. The court said the right to free speech did not trump Congress’ goal of limiting the corrosive effects of corporate money in politics.
• Rejected an appeal from a South Carolina hospital that tested pregnant women for drugs and turned over the results to police. The court already had ruled the testing was unconstitutional.
• Affirmed strict limitations on family visits to inmates, ruling that prisoners’ civil rights do not outweigh security concerns in crowded prisons.